Month: August 2007

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Larry the Legend…

It’s nice to know some people still remember.

I made my usual Friday night rounds last night (came off the wagon – my experiment with not drinking on weekends to expediate my weight loss wasn’t working all that well). Started off by watching the women’s volleyball team open their season up with a huge win over Texas (PSU is ranked #3 in the country and Texas #4 – PSU won 3 games to 1), then headed down to the Tavern.

I walked into the bar and David Gray (PSU soccer player and son of a couple of old friends, all of whom I’ve mentioned on the blog a couple of times) was sitting at the bar chatting with a couple in their 50s. David immediately calls me over and introduces me to the couple. As he does so he says to me “Tim was a Phi Psi here” and then tells the couple “Larry used to run in the Phi Psi”. The guy asked me when I ran and I told him almost every year after 1971. I then asked him when he was there and he said that he was the race chairman in 1975, at which point I said “that was about when I was in my heyday.”

Right then he asks “What was your name again?”. When I tell him, he goes “Omigod! You were a legend!” He then proceeds to tell his wife and David how I won it a couple of times, that I held a couple of records, and that I was in their “History of the Phi Psi” book. At one point David said “Well I had heard Pat (Daugherty) say that Larry was a Phi Psi legend, but I thought he was just joking.” That’s when when the guy goes “Oh no. He was a REAL legend”. Cracked me up. 😀

Needless to say we spent about an hour swapping Phi Psi stories (sorry Ron, didn’t get a chance to tell yours).

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“Fear the Deer”

You might remember a post I made a couple of months ago about a blog that I was creating about the State College Spikes baseball team. The intention at the time was to just track the Pittsburgh Pirates draft choice to try to figure out which ones might get assigned to State College. Well that worked out so well that I decided to keep it up for the entire season.

Not surpisingly I’ve swizzled the blog a lot since I originally created it – I’ve changed the format a couple of time, added a few features, and actually renamed it “Fear the Deer” which is the team’s rally cry.

I occasionally add some editorial content but for the most part the blog is simply a collection of news stories, game reports, and box scores about the team. Even with no effort of my own to promote it, it’s generated a modicum of success:

While it certainly hasn’t enjoyed the exposure my “Every Day is Valentine’s Day” exploit did, it’s really not doing all that bad – and I’m having fun doing it.

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I’m Trying to Get in Shape, too!

Over the past month or so, I’ve been trying to get back into shape by running on a regular basis.  It was actually quite timely, because my first day of running was actually July 4th.  It was the following day that Larry posted his entry about getting serious about doing something about his weight.  BTW, Larry, let’s see some updated figures!

 I had decided I had to get serious too because a few weeks prior when I was packing for our Battle Creek golf trip I tried on some of my golf shorts, and most of them didn’t fit because I had gotten too fat.  I didn’t start running at that time because back in mid-May, I was playing basketball in our driveway with Eric and was attempting to save a ball going out of bounds.  I was right on the edge of the driveway and rolled my right ankle and went down like a pile of bricks.  I was in maybe more pain then I’ve ever felt in my life.  I didn’t see stars, but I did see one bright sun.  Eric was to later say that that was probably the stupidest thing he’s ever seen me do.  The kids are at the age where they show us no sympathy.

 It ends up that I not only sprained my ankle, but several days later I realized that I had strained my achilles.  So due to that injury I wasn’t able to start running until it had healed significantly.  It still is a little tender, but it actually gives me no problems when I’m running.  It’s more bothersome in the morning when I wake up and everything has tightened up.

After a few weeks of running, I decided to start a log of my runs, so I’ve posted it here.  Sorry, no time to make any graphs, but maybe on my next update.

Date Distance Time Min/Mile Comment

I usually run at Moraine Hills State Park a few miles from home.  They’ve got 3 interconnected loops of cinder trails that are great for running.  I usually do the 3.73 mile loop, but have occasionally added a second for a 6.2 mile run.

I haven’t lost much weight, maybe 4 pounds, but my clothes are fitting much better. My goal is to first run the 6.2 mile run in under an hour.  I should be able to do that relatively soon.  As soon as the weather cools down a bit, I’ll give it a go.  My other goal is to see if I can do the 3.73 mile loop in under 30 minutes.  That’s going to be the tough one, but hopefully with another couple of months of serious running and some 50 degree weather and low humidity (as opposed to the 80’s and high humidity I’ve been running in, I just may have a shot of doing it.

 I’ll work on getting my stats to publish a little better, but right now I’ve got to run.  Not literally, I already ran today and it was tough.  I hate running in the morning.  My times are always slower because my body just isn’t ready to perform and I think it goes into shock.

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Central Bucks HS – Class of ’65

Remember any of these guys Marilyn? Their class falls squarely between us.

There’s a judge, a council president, a police chief, a fire chief and a lawyer with a common thread. All five graduated from Central Bucks High School in 1965 and have become leaders in the community.

There’s Bill Cope, Doylestown Fire Co. president; Buckingham Police Chief Steven Daniels; Jeff Garton — the solicitor for Central Bucks and Centennial school districts, Doylestown Township, the Bucks County Water and Sewer Authority and Bucks County Community College; Bucks County President Judge David Heckler; and Doylestown council President John “Chip” Thome.

“It’s not every day that you have [this many leaders] from the same class,” said Cope.

Read the rest of the story.

I can barely remember Heckler and Thome but draw a blank on the others.